Lizzy Caplan: ‘The Election Is A Straight Up Battle Of Good Vs. Evil’

by Lizzy Caplan

Lizzy Caplan—Actor
Mean Girls, Party Down, Masters of Sex

This hilarious-but-getting-less-funny-and-more-scary-by-the-second sideshow of an election has become about so much more than the usual fare. It’s impossible to make this thing simply about issues or ideology when one of the candidates seems to be running not just for president, but for Sociopath of the Year. And he is KILLING that campaign, amirite?? I don’t believe I’m being overly dramatic when I say this thing has become a straight up Battle of Good vs. Evil. And if you watched both conventions, like I did, it seems starkly clear who is representing the “good” side. Hillary and the Democrats are being human beings, preaching, among other things, tolerance and inclusion and standard-issue good will toward your fellow citizens. You know, the shit you’re meant to learn in pre-school.

Let’s stick with this school analogy for a second. If Donald Trump were in high school with the people who today are most likely to vote for him (white men who earn less and are less educated), he would not be their friend. No way. He would have made their lives miserable. Donald Trump would be the bully at school who made fun of them for being poor, for wearing ratty clothes, for needing to eat the school-provided lunches because their parents couldn’t afford to buy groceries for each meal. Donald Trump would have teased them mercilessly if they were on welfare, if they fell behind in their classes because their home lives were too chaotic and they didn’t have a quiet place to study—chaotic because their parents or caregivers were straining under the unlivable condition known as being poor in America.

If this were a high school movie, the audience would cheer when the Donald Trump-like kid finally gets his ass kicked. He’s the fucking rich-kid bad guy!! Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, was handed nothing in her life. She had to work 10 times as hard as any man to get to where she is today—probably 100 times as hard. And that, to me, is so much more American than a guy who was handed everything on a hideously gaudy, gold-plated platter adorned with tusks ripped from a baby elephant that Eric Trump just killed.

I believe we will come out of this victorious, celebrating the much-deserved win of the far-overdue first woman president. But whatever you do, VOTE, everybody. Because even though I believe voting for an asshole gets you two stamps on your Asshole Club punch-card, not voting at all, because you think this psycho has no real chance of winning—well, that makes you the person responsible.


PHOTO: AMANDA MARSALIS

This article originally appeared in the October/November 2016 print edition of BUST Magazine. Subscribe today!

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Founded in 1993, BUST is the inclusive feminist lifestyle trailblazer offering a unique mix of humor, female-focused entertainment, uncensored personal stories, and candid reporting that tells the truth about women’s lives.

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